John Mearsheimer

I hate uniforms. I hate guns.

— John Mearsheimer

I hate shaving.

— John Mearsheimer

I hate sleeping in the woods.

— John Mearsheimer

I hate authority.

— John Mearsheimer

Security invariably trumps prosperity.

— John Mearsheimer

Bandwagoning is a strategy for the weak.

— John Mearsheimer

Decapitation is a fanciful strategy.

— John Mearsheimer

Daily life is essentially a struggle for power.

— John Mearsheimer

When you hear Americans talk about American exceptionalism, American exceptionalism is American nationalism at play.

— John Mearsheimer

If we hadn't had nuclear weapons, we would have had to have a much larger conventional army.

— John Mearsheimer

A crusader impulse is deeply wired into liberal democracies, especially their elites.

— John Mearsheimer

The more closely any ism accords with human nature, the more relevance it will have in the real world.

— John Mearsheimer

The unpleasant truth is that some borders are untenable and preserving them causes conflict, not peace.

— John Mearsheimer

One can justify provocative moves if they serve an important strategic goal.

— John Mearsheimer

States care about relative wealth, because economic might is the foundation of military might.

— John Mearsheimer

This self-defeating behavior, so the argument goes, must be the result of warped domestic politics.

— John Mearsheimer

The ideal situation for any state is to experience sharp economic growth while its rivals' economies grow slowly or hardly at all.

— John Mearsheimer

States that teach a dishonestly self-exculpating or self-glorifying history should be publicly criticized and sanctioned.

— John Mearsheimer

The key to undoing the Taliban is to sow dissension within its ranks by offering carrots - bribes and positions in a…

— John Mearsheimer

When the United States worked to contain the Soviet Union during the Cold War, we went to enormous lengths to get as…

— John Mearsheimer

Great powers react harshly when distant rivals project military power into their neighborhood, much less attempt to make a country on their…

— John Mearsheimer

Mr Putin surely knows that the costs of conquering and occupying large amounts of territory in eastern Europe would be prohibitive for…

— John Mearsheimer

As we learned during the Cold War, the presence of massive nuclear arsenals does not stop great powers from worrying about conventional…

— John Mearsheimer

The liberal tradition has its roots in the Enlightenment, that period in the eighteenth-century Europe when intellectuals and political leaders had a…

— John Mearsheimer

What disappoints me about Obama is that, when he came into office, he gave the impression he was going to reduce America's…

— John Mearsheimer

The Persian Gulf war of 1991 and the Kosovo war in 1999 also hardened India's determination to possess nuclear weapons. The United…

— John Mearsheimer

In the 1930s, Adolf Hitler believed that his great-power rivals would be easy to exploit and isolate because each had little interest…

— John Mearsheimer

Nuclear weapons are considered the ultimate deterrent for good reason: Adversaries are unlikely to threaten the existence of a nuclear-armed state, especially…

— John Mearsheimer

Nuclear weapons are an excellent deterrent against aggression, and India lives in a dangerous neighborhood. Since gaining independence in 1947, it has…

— John Mearsheimer

When you're a country like Ukraine and you live next door to a great power like Russia, you have to pay careful…

— John Mearsheimer

For all good sorts of security reasons, Israel wants to remain the only nuclear power in the Middle East, but a nuclear-armed…

— John Mearsheimer

Someone who is Irish can have a loyalty to Ireland. The problem is when you raise the subject of dual loyalty, many…

— John Mearsheimer

States have two kinds of power: latent power and military power.

— John Mearsheimer

States that promote liberal hegemony invariably damage the fabric of liberalism inside their own borders.

— John Mearsheimer

I believe that nationalism is the most powerful political ideology in the world.

— John Mearsheimer

Occupation almost always breeds an insurgency, as the U.S. discovered in the Philippines, and later in Viet Nam.

— John Mearsheimer

The United States was not interested in conquering, occupying, and integrating Iraq into a greater United States.

— John Mearsheimer

Simply put, the most powerful state is the one that prevails in a dispute.

— John Mearsheimer

In an ideal world, where there are only good states, power would be largely irrelevant.

— John Mearsheimer

Within countries, I believe liberalism is a genuine force for good.

— John Mearsheimer